News
Local

Student given $20,000 fine for health privacy breach in Clinton

A Masters of Social Work student has been ordered to pay the highest fine to date in Canada for a health privacy breach; the student, who was on a placement with the Clinton Family Health Team, has been fined $20,000 along with a $5000 victim surcharge for accessing personal health information without authorization.

The female student pled guilty to willfully accessing the health information of five individuals, however as a part of her plea, she agreed that she accessed the information of 139 individuals without authorization between Sept. 9, 2014 and March 5, 2015.

In March 2015, the Information and Privacy Commissioner was advised that the individual was found to have been illegally accessing the records of family, friends, local politicians, staff of the clinic and other individuals in the community. The IPC referred the case to the Attorney General of Ontario.

This is just the fourth person convicted under the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) since the statue was enacted in 2004. Previous convictions include two radiation therapists at the University Health Network and a registration clerk at a regional hospital; those fines were only for $10,000 and two for $2000.

“It is difficult to comprehend the magnitude of these violations of accessing personal health information,” said the Justice of the Peace in delivering her reasons for the sentence. “The various victims have provided victim impact statements which are quite telling in terms of the sense of violation, the loss of trust, the loss of faith in their own health care community and the utter disrespect that [the student] displayed towards these individuals.”

The Justice of the Peace did state that the student “is sorry and meant no harm.”